Change
by thepianoplayer
Summary: It never occurred to Hayner that change may be good. SeiferxHayner


Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts II.

Warning: Boy love? :O

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Change

_It never occurred to Hayner that change may be good._

thepianoplayer

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It never occurred to Hayner that the town bully, Seifer Almasy, would tire of their rivalry someday. It was such a slow burn; Hayner didn't notice it at first. Thinking about it now, he wished he had been more observant of the signs.

The first things to disappear that marked their violent rivalry were the random fistfights, which occurred anytime and anywhere over the littlest things. Hayner tried to recall the last fight they had and what popped in his mind was the time when Seifer banged his locker door on Hayner's head (they had adjacent lockers). It was accidental, of course; with Hayner being shorter than Seifer he didn't notice the dirty blonde boy beside him and proceeded to throw back his locker door. Thus, they fought in the middle of the school hallway, to the chagrin of the teachers. And to _their_ chagrin, they were thrown to detention together.

The second rivalry-related thing to disappear was the taunting of each other's friends. Gone were the days when Seifer called Olette a mother hen, Roxas a nobody, and Pence a tub of lard. Hayner continued name-calling Fuu and Rai a walking block of ice and a blockhead, respectively, until he noticed that Seifer barely paid attention to Hayner's friends. Olette, Roxas, and Pence were relieved about this change but it irked Hayner to no end.

Okay, well, he had thought that their rivalry would endure until they were both very old, with a common conversation going like this:

"Almasy! Your muscles sag so much you could sweep the floor with them!"

"Oh yeah? Well, have you ever seen an old man picking up his own teeth, lamer?!"

…Or something like that. Nonetheless, it was very disconcerting to finally realize that a huge chunk of Hayner's time and life revolved around Seifer, or at least their rivalry. Now that activity has lessened, Hayner was slowly becoming bored and tired, as if the only thing that fired him up was fighting with Seifer. The only thing that didn't completely disappear was the name-calling for each other. Seifer remained a bully and a jerk while Hayner remained a lamer and a chickenwuss. And even then, the insults were shot less rapidly with even lesser vigor and passion.

Although Hayner would never admit it out loud, he missed those days of fighting, because they were the only times that Seifer paid attention to him outside the Struggle ring, and that's a completely different matter altogether.

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It's Christmas Day and do you know what that means? Right! Get-together parties! And so our story unfolds in a scene where Hayner's and Seifer's parents hosted a huge party in the Almasy residence. With Twilight Town being a small town, almost everyone was there, partying and eating and dancing and laughing and overall just having a good time. Juice and wine were overflowing and scrumptious courses were placed all over the house and the front lawn. The house itself was decorated to look like an enormous present: ribbons entwined on the railings and chandeliers, gorgeous golden green wreaths placed over windows and doorways, an 8 ft tall Christmas tree in the middle of the huge living room with lots of beautifully-wrapped presents underneath its boughs, endless strings of lights that blinked yellow and red and blue, and of course, who would forget the mistletoes?! Every imaginable place was decked with mistletoes: bathrooms, under doorsills, and even underneath staircases! It was a huge success of a party, with all the people jolly and feeling warm inside (most likely due to wine).

It was close to midnight when people slowly started filtering out the front gates of the Almasy residence, mumbling their heartfelt, albeit half-drunken, thanks to their hosts and carrying their presents and children to their cars before driving home. Soon, the only people left were Hayner and Seifer because Olette, Roxas, Pence Fuu, and Rai walked home together, almost friends. Hayner's and Seifer's parents quickly retired to their bedrooms and guestrooms, reasoning that they can clean up tomorrow, and left the two boys out to whatever they want to do. After staring at the darkness for quite some time, Seifer started to retreat inside the house.

"Coming, 'wuss?" he mumbled quietly, careful not to disturb any musing made by the lamer.

"Uhhh, yeah, I just want to be outside a little bit more," Hayner lied. He didn't want to be inside a house with only Seifer awake, who doesn't even pay attention to him anymore. It just felt so, he dare think… lonely?

He continued standing there, buying his time until Seifer fell asleep. No such luck. After a few moments, Seifer grabbed him by the back collar and began to drag him back kicking and screaming inside the house. Apparently, the light blonde boy waited for him on the front steps and grew impatient, so he decided to bring him back inside by force.

"Hey! Cut that out!" Hayner fought the human boulder that was Seifer and thrashed viciously to regain his footing.

"You were freezing out there. I saw you shivering. So before you get frostbite or something, I had to drag your sorry butt back here or else my parents would make me apologize to _widdle Hayner_," Seifer taunted, smirking. Hayner stopped wriggling around and craned his head to look at Seifer, before being dumped unceremoniously on the white marble floor of the living room.

"…You taunted me," Hayner said uneasily. Seifer turned around to face Hayner.

"So what? Your _precious feelings_ got hurt, lamer?" Seifer raised an eyebrow at him.

"No," Hayner bit his lower lip uncertainly, which Seifer eyed with interest. "It's just that, you stopped already, didn't you? You stopped paying attention to me."

Seifer walked across the room to where Hayner still lay and leaned over him. Hayner looked back up with confused chocolate brown eyes. Seifer's icy blue ones made him nervous.

"So lamer missed my attention, hmmm?" Seifer's face, Hayner swore, lit up like a Christmas bulb. It just shone with mirth.

Hayner's cheeks slowly dusted with pink. "N-no!" Shaking his head side to side, he continued, "I quite enjoyed the peace and quiet for once." His stomach suddenly flipped uncomfortably at his own words and he rubbed at it unconsciously.

"Oh? So lamer really missed me," Seifer smirked, acting like Hayner spoke the opposite of what was originally said. He narrowed his eyes as he pretended to ponder on a solution. "So you want me to revert to beating you up every single day?"

Oh heavens, no. "NO!" Hayner, without warning, jumped up, narrowly missing Seifer's head in the process. He fisted his hands, as if prepared to fight, and proceeded to babble away, "It's not that I miss you or your stupid antics. I just miss the fun, y'know?" Sheesh, he sounded like Rai.

"Fun? You thought that being beaten up by me was fun? I didn't know you were a masochist, lamer," Seifer drawled annoyingly. It was slowly getting on Hayner's nerves. He took a step toward Seifer and shook his fist at him.

"Shut up! All I'm trying to say was that I missed the rivalry, okay? I missed the attention. And I am NOT a masochist! I do not enjoy pain! Maybe except when it came from you. But still – " Hayner stopped abruptly to rewind everything he said in his head. Did he actually say that he missed the attention after fervently denying it? And that he liked pain when it came from Seifer? Hayner was really known for blurting out his feelings without thinking first. Uh-oh… He covered his mouth with both hands in surprise, mortification, and realization and blanked out when he saw Seifer's lips curling into an _I told you so_ grin. This does not bode well…

"It's okay to miss someone, lamer, especially an important figure in your life like me," Seifer pretended to preen. "So you miss the attention, huh? I can give it back to you." Hayner took a step back but Seifer closed in on him fast. He hardly noticed Seifer looking up and grinning because he was so focused on escaping the jerk. But the traitorous door frame hindered his escape to enjoy a much longer life. "Everything changes, lamer, so the attention you might get back may be different from before."

At this, Hayner froze, his eyes the only parts of his body still darting around. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this." And with that, Seifer's lips descended over Hayner's before withdrawing at the last second and placing them on the boy's cheek instead, softly kissing it.

A tingling sensation shot throughout Hayner's entire body and he fought the weird emotions shooting out from him. Strange emotions that threatened to take over when they shouldn't be. Confusion? Hatred? Disgust? …Attraction? Hayner squeezed his eyes shut. Seifer slowly pulled back, his warm blue eyes glancing at Hayner's stiff posture.

"Are you okay?" Seifer asked, slightly worried.

Hayner let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and nodded timidly. "Y-yeah… Just surprised…" He opened his eyes to gaze at Seifer before asking, "What was that for?"

This time, it was Seifer who had the decency to blush. "It was for you. You wanted attention, right?" he answered lamely, nervously looking at anywhere but Hayner. His heart was beating fast, then slow, then fast again. A cycle that pounded in his ears. "And we're under mistletoe."

"We are?" Hayner didn't bother to look up, taking at face-value what Seifer said, and instead stared incredulously at the older boy in front of him. "You don't seem the type to follow tradition."

"Well, I do so shut up!" Seifer's hot blush spread to his ears, the mere act making Hayner laugh. It wasn't everyday you could embarrass the king of frost.

"Okay, okay," Hayner giggled. He enjoyed teasing Seifer now that the atmosphere has lightened up. He schooled his features to something akin to seriousness and declared, "But I have a question. Why did you start ignoring me in the first place?"

The conversation turned back to serious mode and Seifer closed his eyes before replying, "I didn't want to hurt you anymore."

Hayner, for the second time that night, froze. "W-what?!" he finally choked out.

"You heard me," Seifer ground out irately. "It's stupid but I have this clenching feeling inside when I succeed at provoking you. It was uncomfortable so I tried to stop. But I guess it didn't help. I sought you out even more."

Hayner pondered on this for a moment. "You sound like you like me," he finally said half-heartedly, dismissively waving his hand. But that wouldn't happen. Right? He's a guy. And Seifer would only like submissive people, he guessed, since opposites attract. Right? Anyhow, why should he care about Seifer's type anyway? It's not as if he liked him back…

"Yeah, I guess that would explain it…" Seifer muttered vaguely, turning away. He turned around to stalk towards his bedroom, his jaw tightening. "Go to sleep 'wuss. The wine's gone in your head. And for heavens' sake, forget about what happened tonight." On the outside, he looked all ready to brush it all off as a joke but inside, he was calling himself stupid a thousand times and beating himself up about what happened.

He was barely a meter away when Hayner grabbed his arm and he whirled around to face the younger boy. He stumbled as he found himself an armful of the chocolate mess that was Hayner and sighed when he felt soft lips press on his own.

"I like this attention better…" Hayner whispered against Seifer.

It never occurred to Hayner that Seifer would see him as anything else other than a rival.

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The next day during clean-up (with Olette, Roxas, Pence, Fuu, and Rai helping), Hayner noticed that there weren't any mistletoe above where he and Seifer kissed.

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Reviews and constructive criticism appreciated. I'm quite new, you see. :D See you all next time! :D


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